In the backseat of an open, staff SS car, Untersturmfuhrer Amon Goeth (Ralph
Fiennes), the commandant for a new labor camp in Plaszow, is driven through
the cold, wind-swept ghetto that is divided into two halves. On one side (Ghetto
A) are the cramped housing units for civil employees and industrial workers.
On the other side (Ghetto B) are where surplus laborers live, including the
elderly and infirm.

Plaszow Forced Labor Camp Under Construction

Outside Krakow, the pouring of foundations and renovations
are occurring at the site of a labor camp under construction. Teams of
forced Jewish laborers are doing the work. A villa high on a hillside is
assigned to the new commandant as housing. From a line-up of young women,
Goeth selects a "very lucky girl"
for a job "away from all this backbreaking work" in his villa. The ones with
domestic experience are ignored ("all those annoying habits I'll have to undo")
- he chooses a shy, trembling girl named Helen Hirsch (Embeth Davidtz) as
his villa's maid.

A female Jewish worker trained as an engineer at the University of Milan,
Diana Reiter (Elina Lowensohn), is the foreman who supervises the construction
of a half-finished barracks at Plaszow. When she complains loudly about the
faulty, poorly-laid foundation, she tells the vicious Goeth:

The entire foundation has to be torn down and repoured. If not,
there will be at least a subsidence at the southern end of the barracks. Subsidence
and then collapse.

Goeth mutters something to himself about her being an educated Jew,
calmly turns to his inferior officer, and commands: "Shoot her." All are stunned
by the sudden order (and the outrageous reasoning he has used), and the young
female engineer pleads for sanity and reason: "Herr Commandant, I'm only trying
to do my job." He curtly replies: "Yeah, I'm doing mine...I'm not going to
have arguments with these people. Shoot her here, under my authority." As
the officer unholsters his pistol, her last words are: "It will take more
than that." Goeth calmly replies: "I'm sure you're right." Her body goes limp
and crumples to the ground after she is shot in the head - there is more blood-stained
snow after the indiscriminate, random killing. Without pausing, Goeth then
orders the structure rebuilt: "Take it down, repour it, rebuild it, like she
said." He appears to take pleasure in torturing and terrorizing his Jewish
workers.

To establish the similarity of the two male characters, both Schindler and
Goeth - in two different locations - are brushing shaving soap onto their
fair faces and sliding a straight razor through the lather on their Aryan
cheeks. Prefaced with a short voice-over transition, the soon-to-be Commandant
Goeth stands before his assembled young Sonderkommandos in Krakow and addresses
them in the dawn light. He preaches the liquidation of the ghetto and of the
Jews in Krakow:

Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now, the
young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part
of it. Six hundred years ago, when elsewhere, they were footing the blame
for the Black Death, Kazimierz the Great, so called, told the Jews they could
come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They
settled, they took hold, they prospered - in business, science, education,
the arts. They came here with nothing. Nothing! And they flourished. For six
centuries, there has been a Jewish Krakow. Think about that. By this evening,
those six centuries are a rumor. They never happened. Today is history.

In a quick montage of scenes during the speech's delivery, a Jewish man
sings a prayer incantation, the Dresner family shares a meal in their ghetto
apartment, Mila smiles up at her husband Poldek, and Stern notices through
his window that the clerks and listmakers are setting up their folding tables
and chairs and setting out their ink pads and stamps in the square. Meanwhile,
as Schindler gallops his horse across the countryside with mistress Ingrid
(Beatrice Macola), trucks of troops are moved into the ghetto to liquidate
it.

LIQUIDATION OF THE GHETTOMARCH 13, 1943

The terrifying Goeth commands that the stormtroopers, many of whom have
leashes on muzzled dogs, start with Ghetto B in his massive orchestration
of the coordinated effort to raze the ghetto. The riders stop on a hilltop
clearing above the Krakow ghetto buildings - from a distance and on horseback,
they look down at the peaceful, early morning scene - soon they will watch
the extermination of the Jewish ghetto. Echoes of the noise of the growling
dogs, trucks, and orders shouted out are heard in the distance. The stormtroopers
surround the buildings and roust the Jews from their apartments. Fear registers
on the faces of the children. In one of many vignettes, some of the refugees
roll their valuable jewels into wads of bread to be swallowed - like a communion
ritual - anticipating that they will survive. Any resistance or questioning
is halted with the report of a gun. Suitcases are dumped from upper balconies
and abandoned as litter. Pfefferberg tells Mila that he is planning to escape
through the sewer tunnel, but she refuses to join him. He pries off a manhole
cover and descends into the steamy depths. Frightened Jews are yelled at and
herded into groups. One father is killed with machine gun fire for deflecting
a soldier's aim toward his son's back as he flees - the boy is also arbitrarily
shot as he is dragged back.

To prevent even crueler deaths, a doctor in the hospital calmly measures
out doses of poisonous (Thucizna) cocktails that are soon administered by
nurses to threatened, helpless, terminally-ill Jewish patients. The lifeless
corpses are machine-gunned until the soldiers realize they're already dead.
Without regard to family considerations, women are segregated from the men,
splitting husbands and wives. Young Danka Dresner (Anna Mucha) is dragged
away from her family. As he rounds the corner at one end of the sewer tunnel,
Pfefferberg barely escapes being gunned down by waiting troops. He turns back
and comes up in a street littered by dead bodies and strewn luggage, and is
unable to locate Mila in their apartment.

As they are herded along, Danka and Mrs. Dresner duck into
an open ghetto apartment. Danka lowers herself into a sunken floor compartment
to hide, but a stunned Mrs. Dresner is intentionally left outside by another
woman who claims: "There's not enough room for you...I can fit the girl, but not you."
Conspicuously caught in the middle of a suitcase-littered street, and with
nowhere to hide, Pfefferberg thinks fast - he begins to stack the suitcases
against a wall when Goeth and other soldiers appear - he faces them, clicks
his heels and salutes, masquerading as a recruit:

Pfefferberg: I respectfully report I've been given orders to clear
the bundles from the road so there will be no obstructions to the thoroughfare.
Goeth: (amused) Finish and join the lines, little Polish clicking soldier.
(The troops move on)

As a terrified Mrs. Dresner hurries down the apartment building
steps, a young Jewish boy (an OD) who is assisting the Germans considers
blowing his whistle on her to alert the soldiers, but then he recognizes
her - she is the mother of one of his friends. He encourages her to hide
under the stairs, and then tells approaching SS troops: "I've searched the building. There's
no one here." The young lad Adam Levy (Adam Siemion) saves both her and Danka,
promising: "Come with me. I will put you in the good line." Mrs. Dresner blesses
the boy: "You are not a boy anymore. I'll say a blessing for you."

From his vantage point, Schindler's attention is directed to a young girl
in a drab red coat - a small spot of color on the large black and white screen.
Her lone image personalizes the slaughter. The camera follows her - and Schindler
tries to track her progress - as she invisibly makes her way, aimless and
alone, past the madness and chaos in the street - a woman is machine-gunned
behind her. He loses sight of the small figure as she walks behind a building,
but then he glimpses her again, walking by a file of Jews being herded down
a sidewalk. During the roundup, a German soldier fires at a single-file lineup
of men, killing five with one bullet. Distressed and stricken by the nightmare
below and the plight of the little girl in red, Schindler sees her entering
one of the empty apartment buildings. There, she climbs the stairs and crawls
under a bed for cover in a ransacked room.

The final chapter of the Krakow ghetto liquidation scene occurs that evening,
with a night-time hunt by special squads of SS killers for Jews still in hiding
in the ghetto apartments. They listen with stethoscopes on ceilings and stealthily
enter rooms with flashlights. Machine-gun fire produces flickers of starbursts
and flashes of light in the nightmarish darkness. When one of the Jews hiding
in a piano missteps on the keys, the sour notes are met with rattling gun
fire. Bullets pepper an attic floor and tear through kitchen cupboards and
pantries, searching for imperceptible targets. Contrapuntally, one of the
soldiers plays the piano in one of the apartments as his comrades roam from
room to room. At the doorway to the room, two soldiers ask each other if it
is Bach or Mozart being played. [The answer: the piano piece is the Prelude
to Bach's English Suite #2 in A Minor.] The sounds of death are brought
to those that are discovered. Behind him, as the search continues - punctuated
by dazzling gunbursts dancing in windows - Goeth cools off his face: "I wish
this f--king night were over." Schindler stands in his factory office, staring
silently down at the empty D.E.F. factory floor - realizing the implications
of the liquidation for his profitable, exploitative business enterprise.

From the perch of his villa's balcony, the young, monstrous, unpredictable
commandant Goeth, stripped to the waist, stands with his gut hanging out,
surveying from his detached vantage point an open area in the Plaszow work
camp (rock quarry) - his kingdom. Relocated to the labor camp outside of Krakow,
Jews who survived the liquidation stand in long rows. Goldberg, the turncoat
Jew, and other listmakers call out names on lists.

In one of the film's most wrenching scenes, the psychotic,
sadistic madman picks up his gun for target practice and aims the high-powered,
long-range rifle inscrutably from one unsuspecting figure to the next.
He viciously fires and kills a slow-moving woman working in the distance,
disturbing his half-naked girlfriend in his own bedroom. She groans, cries
out: "Oh, Amon,"
and buries her head in a pillow, as Goeth sits down and picks up his burning
cigarette from the ledge with his mouth, and resumes his aim and fires toward
another of his prisoner-victims. He turns back toward his lover with his scope
rifle aimed at her in bed - annoyed, she chides him as "a damn f--kin' child."
The barbaric, evil killer of Plaszow pisses into the toilet.

Schindler's shiny Mercedes, a symbol of his wealth, drives through the camp
on a road made entirely of broken tombstones scavenged from nearby Jewish
cemeteries. Many of the camp's workers are former enamel factory workers of
Schindler's who have been moved from their ghetto to the work camp. One man
kneels with his hands in the air with a sign around his neck (for an offense
he committed) as a reminder to the others.

Schindler is chauffeured to Goeth's villa for a fancy meal with high-ranking
German officers and other industrialists:

The SS will manage certain industries itself inside Plaszow. Metalworks,
a brush factory, another for re-possessing Jewish clothing from the ghettos
to use by burned-out families back home. But it's private industry like yours
that stands to benefit most by moving inside the wire of commandant Amon Goeth's...

After Schindler meets Goeth - his evil counterpart, one
of the SS officers explains the benefits of moving factories into Plaszow. "Since your labor
is housed onsite, it's available to you at all times. You can work them all
night if you want. Your factory policies, whatever they've been in the past,
they'll continue to be, they'll be respected." Later, in a one-on-one encounter
in Goeth's study while they share a drink of cognac, the self-indulgent Schindler
describes his economic predicament - and asks for a favor. He hopes to bribe
the Nazi officials to let some of the labor camp inhabitants go back to work
for him in his factory in Krakow, so that he can continue to profit from
them:

Schindler: I go to work the other day. Nobody's there. Nobody tells
me about this. I have to find out, I have to go in. Everybody's gone.
Goeth: They're not gone. They're here.
Schindler: They're mine! Every day that goes by, I'm losing money.
Every worker that is shot costs me money. I have to find somebody else. I
have to train them.
Goeth: We're going to be making so much money, none of this is going to matter.
Schindler: It's bad business. (Goeth's Jewish maid-girlfriend Helen serves
them)...
Goeth: Scherner told me something else about you.
Schindler: Yeah, what's that?
Goeth: That you know the meaning of the word 'gratitude.' That it's not some
vague thing with you like it is with others. You want to stay where you are.
You've got things going on the side, things are good. You don't want anybody
telling you what to do. I can understand all that. You know, I know you. What
you want is your own sub-camp. Do you have any idea what's involved? The paperwork
alone? Forget you got to build the f--king thing, getting the f--king permits
is enough to drive you crazy. Then the engineers show up. They stand around,
they argue about drainage, foundations, codes, exact specifications, parallel
fences four kilometers long, twelve hundred kilograms of barbed wire, six
thousand kilograms of electrified fences...I'm telling you, you'll want to
shoot somebody. I've been through it, you know, I know.
Schindler: Well, you know, you've been through it. You could make things easier
for me. (Goeth shrugs) I'd be grateful.

Schindler's opportunism and sense of timing pay off, but
at a price. Five hundred Plaszow worker/prisoners are marched back into
the factory gates of the D.E.F. to re-establish his workforce, under Schindler's
stoic gaze. The Jews are flanked by armed guards, barking dogs, and barbed
wire. When the last of them passes by, Schindler asks concernedly about
the whereabouts of his competent, disciplined accountant: "Where's Stern?"

Schindler learns that Stern has been set up in a separate office in the work
camp at Plaszow, to deal directly with Goeth:

Make sure I see my cut from the factory owners in this camp. I'm
leaving you to take care of my main accounts - the Schindler account. He wants
his independence. I gave it to him. But independence costs money. This you
understand? (Stern nods)...Don't forget who you are working for now.

During another hedonistic party at Goeth's villa attended by Schindler,
he has been able to summon Stern from his barracks and speak to his accountant
outside Plaszow's work camp gates. Stern prompts his incompetent ex-employer
- now without his useful financial, organizational, or middleman skills
- to remember the birthdays of their SS friends' wives and children, and
the proper method of payoffs (without paperwork, invoices, or receipts) to
the main administration and economics office and the armaments board, the
governor general's division of the interior, the chief of police's fees and
black market contacts. Exasperated by the bureaucracy (as Goeth had predicted),
Schindler gives up: "It gives me a headache," he complains. Stern is concerned: "Herr
Direktor, don't let the things fall apart. I worked too hard." Schindler
shares food scavenged from the party with Stern.

Metalworks factory inside Plaszow forced labor camp.

Goeth inspects the busy metalworks factory inside Plaszow,
reaching a particular worker (a former Rabbi) who is making hinges. He
mentions that workers coming in the next day from Yugoslavia will cause
problems - "I've got to make room."
The commandant begins timing the making of a hinge with his pocket watch -
Rabbi Lewartow (Ezra Dagan) feverishly cuts and crimps the piece and presents
the finished product in about forty seconds. Although impressed, Goeth questions
the worker's output: "What I don't understand is that you've been working
since I think what, about six this morning, yet such a small pile of hinges."
After providing his own death sentence, the self-condemned Lewartow is led
out by the neck to be shot in an open courtyard. Goeth's malfunctioning gun
repeatedly clicks without discharging, as Lewartow drops to his knees and
explains: "Herr Commandant, I beg to report that my heap of hinges was so
unsatisfactory because the machines were being re-calibrated this morning.
I was put onto shoveling coal." Frustrated and mindlessly brutal, Goeth slams
the weapon across Lewartow's head, sending the man slumped and dazed to the
ground.

Pulling more strings to keep his Jewish workers from being sent away, Schindler
hoists an elaborately-oiled saddle from his car's trunk and delivers it and
other gifts to Goeth's villa. Stern approaches Schindler with a serious problem
and describes the hinge controversy - he is given Schindler's gold cigarette
lighter. In the next scene, the lighter has been transferred into the hands
of Goldberg - the bribe has been rewarded with a protective job transfer for
the rabbi from the work camp. Goldberg jots Lewartow's name down on a personnel
list of workers for the D.E.F.

Goeth paces before a work detail of about twenty men holding their heads
down, while dangling a dead chicken in his hand. He demands a confession about
the stolen bird. When no one responds, he indiscriminately shoots one of the
workers at random with a rifle. After waiting a few more moments, a fourteen-year
old, orphaned lad (Adam, the same one who saved Danka and Mrs. Dresner in
an earlier scene) steps forward, weeping and shuddering - he points at the
dead man, accusing him of the theft. Goeth believes the boy, to everyone's
astonishment. A second gift to Stern - a cigarette case - likewise appears
with Goldberg. The honored young lad is subsequently assigned to work in the
enamelware company. Schindler begins to take risks to keep some of the Jews
from being executed or sent away to concentration camps.

A nervous, plain-looking young woman, Elsa Krause/Regina Perlman (Bettina
Kupfer), summons up her courage to cross the street in front of the D.E.F.
and contact the director of the company through the security guard. Schindler
glances with disapproval from a second floor landing down a long stairway
at her - he turns away from allowing her entry. She returns to her Krakow
room, applies lipstick and dresses more provocatively to gain entrance into
his office, where she audaciously, yet tentatively, pleads for the transfer
of her elderly, unskilled parents from the work camp. Schindler is infuriated,
fearing that his own reputation for providing sanctuary and a haven for Jews
lacking skills will endanger his financial well-being - he sees himself not
as a savior but as a money-maker:

Schindler: So, what can I do for you?
Krause: They say that no one dies here. They say your factory is a haven.
They say you are good.
Schindler: Who says that?
Krause: Everyone. (He turns and walks away) My name is Regina Perlman, not
Elsa Krause. I've been living in Krakow on false papers since the ghetto massacre.
My parents are in Plaszow. Their names are Chana and Jakob Perlman. They are
older people. They're killing older people now in Plaszow. They bury them
up in the forest. Look, I don't have any money. I-I borrowed these clothes,
I'm begging you - please, please bring them here.
Schindler: I don't do that. You've been misled. I ask one thing: whether or
not a worker has certain skills. That's what I ask and that's what I care
about...Such activities are illegal. You will not entrap me, Miss Krause.
Cry and I'll have you arrested, I swear to God.

Slamming and opening doors provide the transition to the next scene in Stern's
office in Plaszow. Schindler aggressively admonishes his crafty accountant,
because he is frustrated about the jeopardized predicament he has been thrust
into by the acceptance of rabbis, orphans, and unskilled workers [evidenced
by the three previous film sequences]. However, he relents and allows Stern
to bring more favored, selected few - the Perlmans - to his factory 'haven':

Schindler: People die, it's a fact of life. He wants to kill everybody?
Great, what am I supposed to do about it? Bring everybody over? Is that what
you think? Send them over to Schindler, send them all. His place is a 'haven,'
didn't you know? It's not a factory, it's not an enterprise of any kind, it's
a haven for rabbis and orphans and people with no skills whatsoever. You think
I don't know what you're doing? You're so quiet all the time. I know. I know.
Stern: Are you losing money?
Schindler: No, I'm not losing money, that's not the point.
Stern: What other point is -
Schindler: (interrupting) It's dangerous! It's dangerous to me. You have to
understand, Goeth is under enormous pressure. You have to think of it in his
situation. He's got this whole place to run, he's responsible for everything
that goes on here, all these people - he's got a lot of things to worry about.
And he's got the war. Which brings out the worst in people. Never the good,
always the bad. Always the bad. But in normal circumstances, he wouldn't be
like this. He'd be all right. There'd just be the good aspects of him - which
- he's a wonderful crook. A man who loves good food, good wine, the ladies,
making money -
Stern: - killing -
Schindler: He can't enjoy it....What do you want me to do about it?
Stern: Nothing, nothing. We're just talking.
Schindler: (He pulls out a slip of paper and reads a name) - Perlman.

In a line-up and roll-call, Goldberg (wearing Schindler's
wristwatch) shouts out "Perlman" - the elderly couple are pulled from the line - in a flashcut,
parallel scene, Schindler unstraps his expensive wristwatch and instructs
Stern: "Have Goldberg bring them over." Outside the D.E.F., a relieved, grateful
Regina is rewarded by seeing her aging parents escorted into the factory.

During one of Goeth's villa parties, Schindler goes to the basement/wine
cellar for a bottle of wine. Housekeeper Helen's living quarters are in the
tomb-like room. Realizing how downtrodden and depressed she is as Goeth's
arbitrary, reluctant object of affection, he shows his odd liking for her.
[Goeth confronts Helen in a similar sequence later in the film.] Schindler
encourages her to speak about the agonizingly tortured existence she faces
every day. She describes how there is no sure strategy or formula for actions
or behaviors to reliably increase one's chances of survival:

Schindler: Why don't you build yourself up?
Helen: My first day here, he beat me because I threw out the bones from dinner.
He came down to the basement at midnight and he asked me where they were -
for his dogs...I said to him, 'Why are you beating me?' He said, 'The reason
I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you.'
Schindler: I know your sufferings.
Helen: It doesn't matter. I have accepted them...One day, he will shoot me.
Schindler: No, he won't shoot you.
Helen: I know. I see things. We were on the roof on Monday, young Lisiek and
I, and we saw the Herr Commandant come out of the front door and down the
steps by the patio right there below us. And there on the steps, he drew his
gun - he shot a woman who was passing by. A woman carrying a bundle, through
the throat. Just-just a woman on her way somewhere. You know, she-she was
no fatter or thinner or slower or faster than anyone else and I couldn't guess
what had she done. The more you see of Herr Commandant, the more you see there
is no set rules that you can live by. You can say to yourself, 'if I follow
these rules, I will be safe.'
Schindler: He won't shoot you because he enjoys you too much. He enjoys you
so much, he won't even let you wear the star. He doesn't want anyone else
to know it's a Jew he's enjoying. He shot the woman from the steps because
she meant nothing to him. She was one of a series - neither offending or pleasing
him. But you, Helen. It's all right. It's not that kind of a kiss. (He tenderly
kisses her on the forehead)

On the balcony with Schindler after the villa party, Goeth is so drunk he
can barely stand up. Appealing to Goeth's ego-maniacal streak and vanity,
Schindler delivers a monologue preaching power with restraint, and convinces
Goeth to offer pardons instead of deadly justice:

Goeth: You know, I look at you. I watch you. You're not a drunk.
That's, that's real control. Control is power. That's power.
Schindler: Is that why they fear us?
Goeth: We have the f--king power to kill, that's why they fear us.
Schindler: They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily. A man
commits a crime, he should know better. We have him killed and we feel pretty
good about it. Or we kill him ourselves and we feel even better. That's not
power, though, that's justice. That's different than power. Power is when
we have every justification to kill - and we don't.
Goeth: You think that's power.
Schindler: That's what the emperors had. A man stole something, he's brought
in before the emperor, he throws himself down on the ground, he begs for mercy,
he knows he's going to die. And the emperor pardons him. This worthless
man, he lets him go.
Goeth: I think you are drunk.
Schindler: That's power, Amon. That is power. (Schindler gestures toward
Goeth as a merciful emperor) Amon, the Good.
Goeth: (He smiles and laughs) I pardon you.

In his stables, Goeth berates the stable boy Lisiek (Wojciech
Klata) for carelessly leaving his expensive saddle on the ground - but
he pardons him instead of punishing him. He rides majestically through
the camp high on his white horse, surveying his great domain. He notices
a woman prisoner who was smoking on the job being dragged by the hair by
a guard. Goeth deliberates a judgment and then pronounces an uncharacteristic
sentence to spare her:
"Tell her not to do it again." In his villa's bathroom, Goeth is told by Lisiek
that the boy is unable to remove the stains from his bathtub. Incredulous
that the boy is using soap and not lye, he takes a deep breath, calmly gestures
with a tap on the shoulder, and forgives him: "Go ahead, go on leave. I pardon
you." He stands at the mirror fascinated with his papal-like power, imagining
himself with the restrained might of emperors, but the new image doesn't
fit. At a distance, two gunshots from the villa miss the young lad on either
side. A third shot causes Stern, who is walking by, to flinch - he passes
by the fresh corpse of Lisiek. Goeth has callously killed with lethal accuracy
- a pardon wasn't as powerful or pleasing as sporting target practice.

Three scenes are intercut together: the marriage of a Jewish couple (Rebecca
Tannenbaum and Josef Bau) in the women's barracks in Plaszow camp; a smoke-filled
nightclub in Krakow where Schindler watches a floor show with other SS officers
- the cabaret singer slides into his lap and kisses him during the entertainment;
and a disturbing confrontation between the lusting Goeth and Helen in the
villa's basement.

In one of the film's most brilliant, powerful scenes, Goeth descends the
cellar steps and speaks to a glisteningly-sweaty, nubile Helen in a flimsy,
clinging chemise that is semi-transparent (she dares not answer and remains
speechless with downcast eyes throughout). As he circles around her in the
tomblike room, he delivers a sinister monologue, alternating between threats
and seduction. Taught to disregard the humanity of the Jews, he nonetheless
wants to sexually force himself on her and taste the forbidden fruit (a sexual
liaison between a pure Aryan and a Jew is a punishable, capital crime). But
then he remembers that she is supposed to be detested like a rat. Pathologically
filled with deep self-loathing, he beats the tempting young Jewess for seducing
him:

I came to tell you that you really are a wonderful cook and a well-trained
servant. I mean it. If you need a reference after the war, I'd be happy to
give you one. It's kind of lonely down here, it seems, with everyone upstairs
having such a good time. Does it? You can answer. 'What was the right answer?'
That's-that's what you're thinking. 'What does he want to hear?' The truth,
Helen, is always the right answer. Yes, you're right. Sometimes we're both
lonely. Yes, I mean, I would like, so much, to reach out and touch you in
your loneliness. What would that be like, I wonder? I mean, what would be
wrong with that? I realize that you're not a person in the strictest sense
of the word. Maybe you're right about that too. You know, maybe what's wrong
isn't - it's not us - it's this. I mean, when they compare you to vermin and
to rodents and to lice, I just, uh...You make a good point, a very good point.
(He strokes her hair) Is this the face of a rat? Are these the eyes of a rat?
That's not a Jew's eyes. (He brings his hand over her breast) I feel for you,
Helen. (He decides not to kiss her) No, I don't think so. You're a Jewish
bitch. You nearly talked me into it, didn't you?

The bridegroom's shoe breaks a lightbulb under a handkerchief at the instant
that Goeth savagely strikes Helen across the face. He pitches a shelf over
- it crashes on top of her.

The scene instantly becomes a drunken celebration in the upstairs offices
of the D.E.F. where a party is held to honor Schindler's birthday. The factory
owner is surrounded by friends, Stern, Goeth, and other SS men. He embraces
some of his female lovers - Klonowska and Ingrid. A Jewess from the shop floor
is admitted - she timidly approaches and haltingly thanks him, bringing along
an even younger girl carrying a homemade cake:

On behalf of the workers, sir, I wish for you a happy birthday.

In everyone's company (including the top German military),
Schindler kisses the younger girl on both cheeks, and then gives the stunned
factory girl a sustained kiss on the mouth, followed by heartfelt thanks: "Tell
them thank you from me."

Empty cattle cars are brought to the train depot in Plaszow.
In the muddy open space between the barracks, the clerks set up their folding
tables. Goldberg distributes clipboards with lists. White-gowned doctors
with stethoscopes are assembled. On his villa balcony during the semi-annual
physical - with the entire population of the camp within view behind him,
Goeth announces that a shipment of Hungarians to his camp means he must
reduce the size of the Plaszow work force: "We've got to separate the sick from the healthy to
make room." A health action is required.

A needle is placed on an old phonograph record. As the scratchy tune plays
during the sorting process of the healthy from the unhealthy, the men on one
side (and women on the other) are stripped of their clothing and forced to
run through the muddy compound in front of doctors to prove that they are
fit in a harrowing endurance test. Instant medical exams quickly make fateful
selections. In the barracks, some of the women prick their fingers and rub
their own blood on their cheeks to redden them and add a little healthy color.
Goeth saves his mechanic, Pfefferberg, from suffering through the indignities
of being stripped and evaluated.

A new record, a sing-along children's song, is designed to draw out the
innocently-happy children from the barracks - they are placed in large transport
trucks. The women who are declared fit and healthy are ordered to pull their
clothes back on and return to their barracks. They are overjoyed with their
luck in being saved - until they notice their children being guided and transported
away like lemmings. A mass riot breaks out as wailing women protest and surge
forward toward the departing children. Young Olek Rosner slips away and desperately
tries to find a place to hide for refuge - he slips down a toilet hole inside
an outhouse latrine, sinking in waist-deep into the fecal cesspool of waste
matter where Danka Dresner and other children are already submerged and hiding.

The 'unfit,' now wearing striped uniforms, are marched like
'human cattle' toward the gates of cattle cars for transport elsewhere.
As the heat rises within the confines of the long string of train cars
during the hot day, turning the cars into ovens, the tightly-packed Jews
begin to bake, suffocate, and die of thirst as they wait for the last cars
to be filled. Schindler, who joins the Nazis on the platform as they sip
cold drinks, mercifully suggests that Goeth allow him to hose down the
cars filled with desperate, pleading Jews: "What do you say we get your fire hoses out here and hose down the cars?
Indulge me." The hoses spray cold water into the cars to cool down the doomed
people inside. Amused, Goeth believes the gesture is futile: "This is really
cruel, Oskar, you're giving them hope. You shouldn't do that. That's cruel."
Longer fire hoses are retrieved from the D.E.F. to reach down the full length
of the cars.